Rossputin.com: Rational Thinking About Our World

An interesting group of articles this weekend, from the foreign UK's Telegraph to the liberal NY Times to the conservative Washington Times all argue that Mike Huckabee's current surge in popularity is a huge plus for Rudy Giuliani, a huge negative for Mitt Romney, and generally a negative for the socially conservative part of the GOP.

The Telegrah article (see links below) goes so far as to say that the Giuliani and Huckabee campaigns have at least "an unofficial non-aggression pact".

The theory is fairly simple: Rudy knows he can't win in Iowa and he believes Huckabee can't win New Hampshire (or maybe any other important early primary with the possible exception of South Carolina). Therefore, Rudy needs to do what he can to keep Romney from winning in Iowa and that means helping (by not hurting) Huckabee's chances there.

Polls released yesterday in Iowa have shown Huckabee ahead of Romney, and continuing to move up. Polls also show that Huckabee supporters are more committed to him at this point than Romney supporters are to Romney.

The NY Times reports that "Romney’s Words Testify to Threat From Huckabee" (but when I clicked on that article, it appeared to be mislabeled as it contained a news story about Democrats campaigning in Des Moines.) However, another NY Times story (see links below) describes Romney as spending more time attacking Huckabee (about immigration, in particular) than going after Giuliani and, importantly, talking about Huckabee first.

And the Washington Times article focuses on "panicky" religious conservatives (using Iowa congressman Steve King as an example) who fear that Huckabee could "take Mitt Romney down in Iowa", essentially clearing the path for Giuliani. King argues that "anyone voting for (Huckabee) there in the (Iowa) caucuses will be inadvertently, and ironically, helping the New Yorker".

What fascinating political theater!

My thoughts on these articles and the situation they describe:

Rudy is smart to leave Huckabee alone for now, but should not underestimate Huck's potential appeal in South Carolina which is an important early primary. He needs to be ready to attack Huckabee's conservative credentials on all non-social issues...and Huckabee is indeed very vulnerable as he can not accurately be called a fiscal conservative based on his record.

Some social conservatives are far too worried about Giuliani's personal views on issues like abortion and guns. What really matters is that he does not believe such issues are the bailiwick of the federal government. He is likely to appoint judges who would overturn Roe v Wade, for example, simply because he believes in treating the Constitution with much more respect than that decision did. He is unlikely to support federal regulation of guns because he recognizes that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. His use of the word "individual" in the last debate was very important, and probably overlooked by most listeners.

(I don't know whether I actually made a difference, but I sent the campaign a note suggesting that Rudy mention the upcoming Supreme Court case and use it to emphasize his understanding and support of an individual right conferred by the Second Amendment and he did just that.)

Social conservatives should not be trying to use the federal government to accomplish goals such as banning abortion, in some part because it is much less likely to be effective than regulation at the state level but in larger part because the Constitution does not give the federal government that authority.

Gun rights are an even more obvious case for the same argument.

Rudy's views on "strict constructionism", namely that the words of the Constitution mean something and must be respected and protected mean that he is all but certain to do what he can when he can to put states in the position to effect conservative changes even if Rudy personally wouldn't support those changes. That's what a principled federalist does. Rudy claims to be just that, and I have not yet seen a reason to doubt that claim.

As far as the worry (as the Washington Times describes) of a Giuliani victory "permanently shatter(ing) the largely successful coalition of social, religious, economic and national defense conservatives that, more often than not, has worked electoral magic for Republican candidates at all levels", I don't buy it.

To the extent that it might be true, it's already happened by the GOP's abandoning of economically conservative principles. Now they're trying to get them back in time for voters to believe them. The key is that most social conservatives should be fiscal conservatives (though clearly that's become less true in recent years). It is far less obvious that fiscal conservatives should be social conservatives. (Indeed, I'm a good example of that libertarian-leaning wing of the GOP.)

A true fiscal conservative like Giuliani can be the glue that brings the GOP back together, whether Congressman King believes it or not. Unfortunately for the country, Congressman King believes government should impose his particular moral views on us all. Luckily for King, if Rudy Giuliani wins the presidency, we'll have a president who respects the Constitution enough to give social conservatives the chance to effect change, state by state, in the way the Founders intended.

Links:
Giuliani and Huckabee agree to pull punches (UK Telegraph, 12/2/07)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/02/wuselec102.xml

Romney’s Words Testify to Threat From Huckabee (NY Times, 12/2/07) Other than one picture, the article didn't really seem to talk about Romney or Huckabee
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/us/politics/02campaign.html?

Romney Fights Back in Iowa, N.H. (NY Times, 12/1/07)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Romney-Early-States.html

Giuliani foes in GOP panicky (Washington Times, 12/1/07)
http://washingtontimes.com/article/20071201/NATION/112010053/1001